ANKARA, 28 April 2005 — Turkey’s Parliament protested yesterday over a decision by the Polish National Assembly to recognize the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 90 years ago as “genocide”. Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc said Turkey was canceling several meetings between Turkish and Polish lawmakers in protest.
Turkey strongly denies the claims that some 1.5 million Armenians perished in what is called a systematic genocide orchestrated by the Ottoman government in 1915-1923. It says the Armenians were victims of a war, which claimed even more Turkish lives.
Last week, Poland’s Parliament became the latest in a string of national assemblies, including those of France and Canada, to recognize the killings as genocide. Russia’s State Duma also reaffirmed its long-standing support for the Armenian claims.
Armenians and their backers marked the 90th anniversary of the killings on April 24 in ceremonies around the world. “Our nation feels deep sorrow over a friendly Parliament’s biased interpretation of the tragic incidents that occurred between Turks and Armenians in the circumstances of World War One,” Arinc said in a message to the Polish assembly.
“We can’t accept use of those times as a tool for political intentions, which would cause prejudice against Turkey and the Turkish people... National parliaments are not an appropriate forum to reach a judgment about disputed historical periods.” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said it would shortly send a protest note to Russia over its stance on the issue.
The genocide claims have acquired greater political urgency for Turkey as it prepares for European Union entry talks in October. Some EU politicians — notably in France, home to Europe’s biggest Armenian diaspora — say Turkey should accept the genocide claims before being able to start EU entry talks.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan repeated his challenge yesterday to Armenia to open up its archives from the period and to allow its historians to work alongside Turkish historians to establish the historic facts. But he reacted coolly to a proposal from Armenian President Robert Kocharyan that the two countries, which share a border but have no diplomatic relations, first work to improve ties.
“Before we make a political decision (on improving ties), there is a very important issue (of the genocide claims) to be resolved,” the Anatolian state news agency quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, Turkey has invited experts from Australia and New Zealand to join a construction project at the Gallipoli Peninsula following criticism that road works there had disturbed the remains of Anzac troops and spoiled the natural character of a major World War I battlefield. Erdogan said he had asked his Australian and New Zealand counterparts, John Howard and Helen Clark, to send historians, architects and engineers to work on the project to ensure that the views of the two countries are taken into account.
“Both of them responded positively and I will now give the necessary instructions to my colleagues and we will carry out this project together,” he told reporters after talks with Clark.
Erdogan had met with Howard in Istanbul on Tuesday. Clark and Howard were in Turkey for the 90th anniversary commemorations of the ill-fated landing on Gallipoli by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) on April 25, 1915.
The landing marked the start of a bloody nine-month Allied campaign to wrest the strategic Dardanelles Strait from the Ottoman Empire. It ended in the defeat of the Allies and the deaths of some 86,000 Turks along with more than 35,000 Allied troops, including 11,410 Anzacs.
